


Casualties of a Cold War

by RansomNotes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Cold War, M/M, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 15:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RansomNotes/pseuds/RansomNotes
Summary: When Captain America first wakes up from the ice, it’s the 1980s, and his country needs his help again. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the USA is tentatively partnering with Soviet Russia, to look for the stolen tesseract, which is somehow setting up random portals all over the globe. Steve will have to work with the Russian agents, including the Winter Soldier, but will their tentative team and friendship survive the challenges they face or will it be every (super-)soldier for themselves? And what will happen when secrets and identities are revealed?





	Casualties of a Cold War

**Author's Note:**

> For the Stucky AU Big Bang, with thanks to my artist (& beta!) the always-encouraging [ClaraxBarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton), and gratitude for the patience and help of my two best friends and cheerleaders, who don't have accounts (yet!) but who are, respectively, the other half of my heart and the splinter in my mind.
> 
> The artwork is embedded below, as well, but you can also follow these links to see ClaraxBarton's [banner](https://i.imgur.com/ckYIPFF.jpg) and [main art](https://i.imgur.com/s7L0phA.jpg)! And visit our tumblrs too, at [ClaraxBarton](https://claraxbarton.tumblr.com/) and [RansomNoteworthy](https://ransomnoteworthy.tumblr.com/).

It was cold and dark, and the discomfort in his limbs and pressure in his chest was familiar but somehow unusual. It was a struggle to wake up, but that was often true, with his many health issues and endless illnesses, so he tried to relax his mind as he drifted slowly awake.

Bucky should be up already, but then again, he didn’t remember hearing him getting up for his pre-dawn job down at the docks. Bucky wouldn’t always wake him to say goodbye, as often as Steve asked him; he would say at least one of them ought to get a full night’s sleep.

There was a spike of fear when he thought of Bucky, and it took him a moment to remember: Bucky was at the front!

He must have hit his head, to forget something critical like that. The adrenaline of fear and worry woke him up a bit faster, and he was concerned to still feel so lightheaded. He hadn’t felt this bad since… since…

The flash of memory was overwhelming. Project Rebirth, the War Bonds Tour, the USO visits to the front, going AWOL to rescue Bucky, and then losing Bucky all over again on that doomed train. Afterwards, it had felt almost poetic, almost a relief, to feel forced by circumstances into crashing the plane to save the world, but maybe that was too neat an ending for him.

Had he dreamed the crash?

The ache in his soul from losing Bucky was too raw to have been a dream, and the pain of losing Peggy was too powerfully real, also.

Maybe he was in purgatory, left waiting in the hereafter. He’d been drowning in guilt for longer than he could remember: the jealousy and guilt of being unable to enlist when everyone else, all with futures, unlike him, were laying down their lives, the wrenching failure of being too late to the war to prevent Bucky from being captured and experimented on, the stabbing blame of letting him fall from the train, the aching loss of a future with Peggy.

When he finally actually woke up, it was nearly anticlimactic after the reel of agonizing memories.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes, and tried to wipe away the confusion at the bizarre new world he found.

It was 1985, and everything had changed.

* * *

 

A grim-faced man in a suit swept into his futuristic hospital room moments after he woke up and alarms sounded throughout the room and down the hall.

It was unsettling, and the piercing noise and bright lights were overwhelming. The trio of nurses that were apparently already in the room when he woke up were silencing the machines surrounding him, and as anxious as he was to leap out of bed and face any threat directly while on his feet with fists raised, his limbs were still disconcertingly sluggish, and it was a struggle to even try to sit up.

The ominous man loomed over him for a moment, “Captain Rogers, I’m Executive Agent Nick Fury. You’re in med quarters in New York City. You’ve been asleep, Cap. For forty years.”

There was a long pause as Steve tried to adapt to this information. He still hadn’t responded when Fury gestured to his right. “We have your shield and your updated uniform right here, Captain. Things have changed since your time” as he motioned around the room, at the machines and lights, “but one thing hasn’t: we’re still fighting impossible threats, and your country still needs you, Cap.”

Steve finally managed to clear his throat and hoarsely choke out, “Forty years?”

Fury’s face softened a fraction. “I’m sorry to spring this on you, Rogers. It’s a helluva way to wake up, I know. I wasn’t sure if it would be worse or better for there to have been people you knew here when you woke up, but, ultimately we…collectively decided against it.”

Steve heard the hesitation on the word “we,” and felt like his heart stops. “Is…Agent Carter…?”

Fury nodded, and continued, with gravitas, “Agent Carter is now _Director_ Carter. She’s alive and well, and she and —” he paused a moment “— _her husband_ are still actively involved in the leadership of this agency. You’re in SHIELD headquarters, in New York City, as I said. SHIELD was founded by Agent Carter and Howard Stark after they left the SSR, a few years after World War II ended. We won that war, by the way, in large part because of your sacrifice.”

Steve was suffocating on the disappointment welling up in his mind, warring with the guilt he felt over caring so little about the outcome of the war he gave his life for, in light of the crushing news about Peggy.

Obviously, he’d wanted her to be happy, to have a future after the war. Of course, he’d hoped she’d find love, even if it wasn’t with him, and there had been a part of him that had always expected to die during the war, a part of him that always thought his rose-tinted dreams of their future together might belong to someone else, after he was gone.

But to have found himself alive, inexplicably, and understandably forgotten by everyone, in a future he never planned to see — well, Fury was right. It was a helluva thing to wake up to.

Fury let the silence sit for a moment, then gently offered, “They never stopped looking for you. A joint SHIELD and Stark Industries task force found you last week. It was an impossible shock to discover you were still alive, under all that ice. Stark wants to see you, if you feel up to it. I’m afraid Director Carter is presently unavailable. She’s involved in a strategic mission, and she’s off the grid, for the most part. She’s been informed that you’ve been found, alive, and it is her recommendation that you be offered an honorable discharge, for exemplary service to your country.”

There was another long pause as Steve struggled to cope with all of this emotionally fraught information.

Fury quietly interrupted his thoughts again. “I’ll ask if Stark can see you later today, after you’ve had a chance to talk to the doctors and go through a couple tests with them. I hate to ask this of you, Cap, but we need you. If you’re cleared for duty, we need you back in action, but if the doctors advise against that, we still could use your strategic mind.”

The nurses, who had left shortly after the conversation began, had just re-entered the room with a group of doctors and scientists, judging by the lab coats.

At least some things never change, Steve thought, glumly.

* * *

 

After a seemingly endless battery of tests and samples, Steve was sitting on the edge of the bed when Howard Stark breezed into the room, as brash and self-assured as ever, now with salt and pepper in his hair and signature mustache.

“Well, the prodigal returns! I kept up the searches for you, though I confess I expected just to be honoring your corpse, not standing here talking to you. Your brilliantly crafted corpse, if I do say so myself, but corpse, nonetheless. This is an incredible twist, huh, pal?”

Steve couldn’t help a weak smile at seeing Howard again; it was cripplingly bittersweet to get to see his contemporary again, but looking so much older, when Steve remembered seeing him in briefings mere weeks — now decades — ago.

“Stark, it’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good you’re seeing anything again, am I right? I know I’m usually a sight for sore eyes, but you don’t have to tell me how strange this all is. We buried you, ya know. Well, figuratively, of course, though they did put up a truly excessive monument and statue in your honor, and you know if I think it’s excessive then—”

“Then you’re just jealous,” Steve interjected. He felt a bit more even-keeled now, with the way Howard’s banter was exactly the same.

Howard laughed and nodded. “Ah, Cap, it really is wild to see you. They told you about Peggy?”

Steve look down, deflated again at the reminder. “They told me she’s married. And that you two helped create all this,” gesturing around the room towards the building overall.

“Sorry, Steve, I know that’s tough to hear. We named SHIELD after you, ya know, in honor of you. We’ve had forty years to adjust to what our lives became, and you’re dropped right into the middle of it! Shocking thing to go through.”

“It’s becoming a habit, for me. Dropped into this new body, dropped into leading a commando team…dropped into this new world.”

Howard eyed him contemplatively. “Yeah. You’re in for a headache if you ever have enough downtime to sit alone with your thoughts, I suppose. When you look at it that way, it’s almost criminal we left you unable to get drunk. But then again I don’t know how you’d ever crawl out of the bottle if you ever had the time and ability to climb down into one. Sometimes it’s more than I can do.” Howard trailed off, as if lost in his own head for a moment. He snapped back to the present with a keen look with a sharp clap of his busy hands. “Well, did they tell you what we’re up against now? We’ve been finding energy readings similar to those of the tesseract— oh, did anyone ever tell you? We managed to track down that damned Hydra cube shortly after you crashed. But we couldn’t catch a break in searching for you, until just now. Strange twist, when you think of it: now we have you, and we’ve lost the cube, after all that. Anyway, we keep a weathered eye out for energy signatures like that, d’you see, in general, and in our hopes of tracking the tesseract down. We’ve started seeing it pop up, in different spots, all over the globe. We’re worried we might once again be outgunned and outclassed. I’m working on the guns, and you can work on the class!”

Steve gapes at him, overwhelmed and aggravated to be struggling against and for the Hydra cube even now, decades on.

“Yes, it’s been unpleasant for all of us, too. The cube was stolen some time ago, perhaps by lingering Hydra fanatics, perhaps by some other sort of doomsday group. They stage the occasional attack on our outposts, and we never find much information. I think it’s the Ruskies, somehow. Did they tell you we’ve been shadow-boxing the Russians this whole time? It’s a Cold War, we call it, everything done on the sly, quiet-like. Different from the out-and-out war you helped us with, sure, but still plenty of ‘undisclosed casualties’ for groups like SHIELD. And their spy groups too! Anyway. The signal is only intermittent, and so far in apparently randomized locations, and we’re working on predicting that, but it’s been slowly increasing the frequency of appearances, and we have a devil of a time tracking it, or ascertaining what it might mean. We think…well, Steve, we’re worried it might be connected to space. We’re not sure who’s moving it, or why, but there’s reason to worry that no one is controlling it. That is...no one...local, shall we say.”

Fury had walked in during this explanation. “We’ve lost too many good agents and soldiers to this, and we’re not making enough progress with the usual methods. It’s time we try something that’s never been done before, and since you might just be the patron saint of impossible things, we want to send you.”

Steve fumbles his words for a moment. “What does that…does that mean you’re sending me _to space?_ ”

Fury smirks. “At the moment, no, but that could always change. It means we’re sending you— we hope to send you— on a wild goose chase, and much more importantly, it means we’re sending you with some…problematic team members. Perhaps ‘team’ is overstating it, but you’ll attempt to cooperate with our _very recent_ allies, and if you agree to join this collective, I need your word that you can handle the nuances here, and you’ll treat them as colleagues, until and unless circumstances change.”

Steve agreed tersely, a bit aggrieved at the insinuation that he wouldn’t be a good team member, no matter who he was partnered with.

“Good. Then say goodbye, Stark. And, Captain, we’ve got a lot to talk about.” 

* * *

 

When Howard had left, Fury let the silence linger for a moment before gesturing to the stack of files he’d set down on a side table when he’d entered.

“These files are for you to review. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. It may not be a great slogan, but we’re running out of options here.” He paused and watched Steve with gimlet eyes. “I need to know you can handle what we’re throwing at you. We can retire you, instead, if we must; discharge you and find you a comfy veterans retirement home if you can’t hack it. I’ll buy you some fuzzy slippers myself, if this is too much. This doesn’t have to be your fight anymore, Captain, not if you want to rest. No one would begrudge you a peaceful retirement. But we’re in a situation that requires your specific—skillset, one might say. And there are some sensitive elements here that make this tricky work. You’re not specifically a spy, despite your black ops background, but if you decide to accept this mission…well, it will require a bit more _interpersonal finesse_ than your previous missions, shall we say.”

Steve felt a bit as though he were being managed, like Fury was trying to guarantee his interest with the suspense.

He nodded his interest in the mission and briefing.

Fury stood and opened the door to let the agent waiting in the hallway enter. “This is Sam Wilson. He’ll be your handler on this mission. Sam is adept at navigating murkier waters, so you’ll be working together to help us ascertain what your other team members actually know and what their true motivations might be.”

Sam raised his chin in a greeting and sat down on Steve’s side of the table.

Fury continued, with a brief rundown of the Cold War. “Things are— more settled, of late, but there are many who believe this to be a diversion of some sort. And the timing of this is either a bit convenient or fortuitous, depending on one’s point of view, because here we are, hearing about glasnost and perestroika and a different and new Soviet Union, under their brand-new leader, Gorbachev, and suddenly we’ve been approached with a request to form a collaborative international spy group. They’re supposedly standard KGB agents, but we have our doubts.”

Sam quietly interjected, “Our rumors.”

Fury nodded begrudgingly. “None of this is solid or clear-cut, which is part of why Sam here was assigned as your handler, to help sort through it. You can read the files, but the Asset, the male agent they’re sending, is known as Ivan, or Vanya, but we’ve picked up chatter that he is sometimes called the American.”

Sam leaned over slightly. “He might also be the Winter Soldier, a ghost story about impossible assassinations and government toppling.”

Nick thinned his lips. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But we’re very eager to hear why he’s ever been called the American. His handler is Natalia Romanoff.”

Sam flipped open one of the files and tapped a back page. “There’s reason to believe she is actually the Black Widow, the most successful assassin graduate of the fabled Red Room spy academy.”

Nick scoffed lightly. “More rumors. But assassin or not, no one they send is going to be harmless. And we have more obvious problems here, too. There’s the third member of the team, a Clint Barton. His handler is Brock Rumlow, but we don’t have any particular information on him.”

Steve looked up from the files. “Clint and Brock? Those sound like a Western names.”

Sam sighed and looked away as Fury ground out, “Oh, one of them is. Clint Barton was one of SHIELD’s, until he went up against Natalia a few years back, and defected. We’d happily handle that little problem ourselves, in a permanent way, but we’re playing nice at the moment, and it works out to Russia’s advantage that they can say, ‘who better to liaise with the Americans than one of your own.’ They’re also suggesting that Barton counts as one of ‘ours,’ in terms of the team. Natalia and Vanya and Brock for Mother Russia, and we should be so pleased to be equally represented with three team members: you two and our old friend Barton. And yet, despite that apparent insult, they’ve seemed unusually forthcoming in our recent science exchanges, and they’ve agreed to all our meeting stipulations for your first team meeting.”

Steve shook his head slowly. “There’s a lot of mixed signals here.”

“Exactly. You and Sam might well be in over your heads from the get go, but allegedly, the KGB has been picking up unusual readings around the globe, and they were tentatively probing us for information for a few weeks. We’d noticed some energy reading anomalies, too, ones we couldn’t explain, so we were tentatively exchanging very limited information with Russia, when we found you, and, go figure, the Russians almost immediately suggest a collaborative elite unit, with our top few agents partnered with theirs, hunting these mysterious energy readings.”

“You think they knew about me?” Steve looked between Sam and Fury. Fury nodded tightly.

“Count on it. We need to find the leak, if possible, but you and Sam have other questions to answer. Even if they knew about you, why do they want to work with you? What’s their game in getting close to you? It seems counterintuitive to assassinate you after initiating a partnership, when they could far more easily attempt a regular hit on you. And what’s the history and reality of the energy anomalies? Is this all a smoke screen or a genuine request, and how do we, and you specifically, factor into their plans?”

Steve tried to hide the bewilderment he felt. Fury had been right: this subterfuge and subtext was not in his wheelhouse, and he was already missing his shield and a chance at a straightforward fight.

Steve looked over at Sam. “What’s your take?”

“On why they want you? I’d say the only thing they can’t get from a straight kill is access to the serum, and why else would your discovery apparently initiate this best friends overture, unless it has something to do with what makes you different, the super soldier serum?” Sam looked steadily at Steve for a moment before grinning lightly. “Sorry, but I don’t think this is a real relationship; I think they’re only interested in your body.”

Fury scoffed. “Joke as much as you want, but keep your eyes open, and be ready to take them down before they get a chance to flip on you. Sam might just be joking, but it would be irresponsible of us not to acknowledge the chance that this is a honeytrap operation, and they’ve sent any of these agents to seduce you, whether for the serum specifically, or for something else only you might know or be capable of. But we have our own agenda. We need to know what they know about the energy anomalies, and if you’re willing to accept the risk that you’re a sort of bait, it’s been deemed worthwhile for us to use this opportunity as best we can to find out more about our new friends. Another question: why would they freely send us several of their potentially top agents, who by all accounts might very well be functionally invisible, if they are who we think they are? Why let us meet their ghost and see what they’ve got? I’ll be damned if I can see the logic in it, but that’s a big reason we’re willing to accept our own risks here, your risks in this, because it might well be a significant opportunity for us to extract some information of our own.”

Steve had frowned at the possibility of a seduction attempt, but turned pensive at the additional questions.

Fury stood up and eyed Steve thoughtfully. “You and Sam will have the rest of the day to review those files and prepare to meet the team. We’re set to meet them tomorrow. We have backup teams ready and prepped, if you decide to opt out of this, but there’s enough here to make us believe they’re genuinely worried about the anomalies, and if that’s true, then attempting to have you assigned to the team might well be a strategic decision on their part that also benefits us. If they think they need you, specifically, to deal with this problem, well, it feels safer to send you than to reserve you or pretend you’re still a secret. Just keep your eyes open—and your pants buttoned, gentleman.”

Fury strode deliberately from the room, and while Sam seemed inclined to a rueful grin, Steve felt overwhelmed again and out of place already.

* * *

 

They had all met at some outbuilding, apparently owned by the US government though ostensibly part of a local college.

Both Vanya and Natalia were professional to the point of detachment, while Clint and Brock were distinctly individual. Clint seemed aggressively casual, while Brock just seemed— aggressive. Sam had been charming and polite, but Steve felt wrongfooted and rude, head full of Fury’s concerns and entirely too aware of the hidden risks.

Natalia had concisely outlined the KGB’s current investigations into the anomalies, with her teammates deliberately silent. Vanya had glowered over his face mask at them unceasingly from beside her, with Brock making a show of cleaning his weapons at the table, and Clint had looked on, outwardly bored, slouched in a chair completely across the room from the rest of them.

Steve couldn’t help sneaking glances at Clint throughout the briefing, and every time Clint met his eye with a small nod of acknowledgement.

It was disconcertingly normal. Steve had been shocked into inattention midway through the meeting when the Asset shifted and the light glinting off his left wrist revealed the whole arm to be some sort of metal.

Steve had noticed the metal at first glance but had thought it some sort of armored glove or gauntlet. He had looked up from his staring when he sensed his piercing glare lingering on him. His eyes were chipped ice, baleful as shark’s eyes but with a sense of depth or mystery that only heightened the threatening feeling.

Steve reflexively hated everything about him. He hated the face mask he never removed, the perpetually attentive lethal grace he moved with, and the way his eyes stuck in his mind like a bright light’s after-image.

When they had each been introduced, the man hadn’t responded initially to Vanya, and hadn’t reacted to either offered handshake, and Steve toyed with the idea that he was actually a nameless robot, a soulless golem, like Sam had hinted.

But no, he’d known soldiers like this, damaged like this. Men who wore their armor until it wore them, as if they no longer knew their shape or self without it. It could have inspired a sort of sympathy in Steve, but he tried to ruthlessly tamp it down the rest of the meeting and the walk to gather their belongings on the way to the military plane with Sam.

Despite being a super _soldier_ , he’s never actually been part of the rank and file, aside from his brief training period before the serum, and while the USO show members and the Howling Commandos might seem radically different, they were all nevertheless nearly equally welcoming and team-spirited.

He’d enjoyed being part of a team, after a sickly childhood that never allowed for much of the easy camaraderie of outdoor sports. It’s not as though he really wants to be _friends_ with these people; these are very tentative allies, and strange bedfellows indeed, so he hopes he would know better than to get attached even if Fury and Stark hadn’t already hinted that this alliance might well find an abrupt end. Steve didn’t know how to have temporary loyalty, or conditional fellowship, but he would need to work it out.

Fury had warned them: this partnership had a time limit and a likely brutal end date.

* * *

 

Steve entered the military plane, and debated where to sit among his new team and their support staff.

Sam seemed capable and personable, and it should be easy enough to work alongside him. Sam entered the plane then, and bumped into Steve’s shoulder to gesture him to an area of seats, where they can sit together, then walked off.

Brock sidled up next to Steve as he was gathering up cargo to move onto the plane. Steve recognized the weapons crate, but wasn’t sure what else might be in the bags and other boxes, and though he knew there were surely other agents tasked with loading the plane, his experience in war had taught him to be proactive. He also wasn’t keen to sit with his own thoughts any more than necessary, and he knew all too well that a mission like this was sure to require plenty of downtime. Surveillance tasks are always mean hurry up and wait.

“Captain America.” Brock whistled low. “You hear all the propaganda about the ultimate American hero, but it’s strange to find out you’re real, unlike the rest of the lies. You are real, aren’t you? This mission might be a bit much for you even if you are who they say you are, but you definitely can’t hack it if you’re just some fraud in spandex.”

Steve narrowed his eyes in frustration. He’d known soldiers like Rumlow all his life, men who were fundamentally bullies, even if they were serving a good cause. He didn’t know enough about Brock to gauge if he was a good guy at heart, and he wasn’t going to outright assume he was evil just because he was Soviet, though some of the SHIELD agents’ attitudes seemed to take that view; in Steve’s mind, the Russians were recent allies, though he’d heard plenty about how the Cold War had changed things.

Rumlow moved closer, apparently not discouraged by the lack of response. “Didja hear me, hero? Or do you have shellshock? Bet you were shocked when they paired you with that handler of yours.”

Steve tightened his jaw and debated the best way to deal with this, when he sensed Sam had walked up behind them. He couldn’t be sure if Rumlow had noticed him or not, but with his own enhanced senses he could hear him stop behind them, quietly, like he was avoiding notice.

Steve turned slowly to face Rumlow, and said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Wilson seems a capable and trustworthy agent, and I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Rumlow had smirked and brushed past him, and Steve had resumed his busywork before Sam had joined him, with a small nod but no other acknowledgement of what he’d overheard.

Sam helped him move boxes for a few minutes, before Steve leaned in towards him. “So now that we’ve all followed the diplomatic script, what’s the real situation?”

Sam barked out a laugh. “Guess nothing much has changed since your time, huh?”

Steve shot a glare over at Rumlow. “Evidently not.”

Sam shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. I ignore it, and focus my efforts on being the very best.”

Steve slanted a smirk towards him. “If you’re the best, how come you’re stuck babysitting me then, huh?”

“Maybe I’m especially great with old folks like you, ya ever think about that?”

Steve laughed lightly. “So, any other impressions from our first team meeting? Aside from Rumlow being as insufferable as he looked like he’d be?”

After a pause, Sam had shaken his head and whistled. “Well, don’t leave me alone with Natalia. She’ll honeytrap me for sure.”

Steve had felt immediately offended on her behalf, remembering how often it had been implied that Peggy had achieved her success through less straightforward means than her male colleagues.

“I’m sure she’s a perfectly capable agent. It’s hardly fair to suggest that she’s only here for seduction just because of her gender, or her looks.”

Sam had laughed and rolled his eyes at Steve. “Hell, I’m not casting any aspersions, I’m just saying, if a lady that fine wants to seduce me, I’m all for it! You’re telling me she doesn’t inspire any unpatriotic feelings in you? I’m starting to see why Barton left!”

When Steve’s frown deepened, he’d leaned over. “Look, Rogers, I hope you won’t be offended when I say I’m still trying to figure you out. I just wanted to know if this was going to be an issue for you, working with and maybe even _occasionally_ deferring to a woman. But here, I feel reassured, and you should too. I’m a professional, you’re a professional, she’s _very_ professional, Barton’s a traitor, and Rumlow’s a dick. I’ve got the lines clear in my head. And so do you.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, but after a beat nodded calmly and changed the subject. “Barton’s an interesting case, though, don’t you think? The gall of him, coming back here and working with SHIELD again.”

Sam agreed. “Mixed messages, just like you said. It’s incendiary to send him here, and then he so casually sits out the meeting with that bland look on his face. But he’s got nothing on the blankly murderous look from Vanya, though. Did they ever mention a last name for the killer robot?”

“No, I don’t think they did. Actually, all the files here only say ‘The Asset’ or, once or twice, ‘The American.’ And he didn’t speak at all during the briefing, but then, neither did Barton, and Rumlow hasn’t said much worth repeating.”

They exchanged a long look before Sam shook his head. “Well, welcome to the future, Rogers.”

A few hours later everyone had geared up and loaded onto the Russian military plane. Barton was in the pilot’s seat, with the Asset in the cockpit as well. Natalia had arched an eyebrow in acknowledgement when Sam and Steve had greeted her, as she leaned on a storage container poring over a map or chart of some kind with Rumlow.

“Our combined readings all show randomized and global entries. Always only one at a time, with the readings tapering off before reappearing somewhere else. We haven’t found a pattern yet technicians from both our countries are looking into that. The last two entries have been in Peru and Uzbekistan. For now, our best bet is to either go to one or both locations, or to sit tight until the next entry pops up. Preferences, gentlemen?”

The Asset leaned out of the cockpit enough to make eye contact with Natalia, and she nodded as though he had communicated something in his look. Barton called back to her, “Odds are good there won’t be anything to track except at the most recent location, the energy signature is probably already gone or useless at the previous location, so we shouldn’t waste time with Peru, at least.”

Natalia nodded sharply and looked over at Sam and Steve, who shrugged at each other.

Sam looked a bit surprised, perhaps that Steve wasn’t asserting his leadership, but Steve found it most beneficial to only be so decisive on the battlefield, and less so during planning and prep. Rumlow had shrugged and crossed his arms.

Steve looked from Sam to Natalia. “We can’t know if our current placement will be closer or farther from the next location, and we’re here and ready. We may as well go to the most recent hotspot, and hopefully the intel is worth any travel delay that causes, if it causes any delay at all.”

Natalia apparently agreed, as she had already begun closing up cases and throwing levers to close the plane’s bay doors as Steve spoke. Barton had also apparently expected her reaction, and he was taxiing the plane around to take-off almost immediately.

Natalia handed Steve and Sam additional files with everything they had on the anomalies, before all four settled into their seats and buckled in, with Barton and the Asset still in the cockpit.

Steve hoped they could find some sort of pattern to the information during the flight, or at least gather some intel on their new teammates during the long hours over the Atlantic. Steve wasn’t afraid of flying, exactly, even after his most recent, icy experience, but he still hoped to keep his mind occupied throughout the long flight, and spend as little thought on his encroaching anxiety as possible.

* * *

 

One of the team’s first nights together was spent in the plane, still mid-flight, all draped awkwardly in seats and across cargo bags and boxes. Steve only needed a few hours sleep each night, since the serum, and he felt keyed up and still on edge from all the time in the hospital and medical testing rooms, and in no mood to rest.

Sam was deeply asleep, as the Asset took a shift flying the plane, and while both Barton, Rumlow, and Natalia also looked to be asleep, Steve recognized the shallow and wary sleep from his time with the Howling Commandos behind enemy lines. No doubt they would be awake and alert in moments if need be. Steve wondered if the wariness was because they were currently on a mission, or if it was the proximity and presence of the American team making them ill at ease.

The Asset had assumed controls of the plane without any discussion. Steve wondered if their unspoken work together was the result of a frequent and long partnership, or if the hierarchy in the other team was far stricter than theirs.

Steve technically outranked Sam, if they were still traditional military, but as Steve’s handler, Sam could call the shots. It was in some ways a more complicated a partnership than others he’d served in, but nothing impossible. After all, he’d outranked Bucky but Bucky always had a way of persuading Steve, any time he truly tried. The Commandos used to joke about Bucky being their secret veto power, and Steve always pretended not to overhear, because it was a relief to him, to think that Bucky could and would speak up if necessary. After all, Bucky was the one with more and traditional experience, of the two of them, and sure Steve was a gifted leader, but the best leaders lead from alongside their teams, whenever possible.

The Russians seemed to be suggesting that the Asset was the team lead, with Barton as support and Rumlow and Natalia as the coordinators, but watching their interactions made Steve convinced that Natalia was team lead. He wondered if the subterfuge about their team mechanics was because they thought Steve specifically to be old-fashioned, or the Americans in general to be traditionalists and patriarchal. Steve had loved and idolized Peggy, but she was also the co-creator of SHIELD itself, so Steve didn’t think he was the only SHIELD agent to be very aware of the underrated talent and capability of female agents and colleagues.

Or perhaps the Russian team itself was unaware of its actual mechanics; maybe the Asset ostensibly was the leader, and the use of a title instead of a name was supposed to be honorific, rather than dehumanizing.

Rumlow certainly didn’t seem to willingly listen to Natalia, but he also didn’t challenge the quiet leading she seemed to do, and whether that was merely acknowledging that both the Asset and Barton seemed to defer to her, or actual hierarchy keeping him in line, Steve couldn’t tell yet.

Steve shook his head and walked up to the cockpit. He had too many questions, and limited opportunities to seek answers, so he should make the most of the time he had.

He settled into the copilot seat next to the Asset, who was sitting ramrod straight and intently focused on the controls, despite the late hour and unchanging and boring aspects of their current cruise altitude.

The Asset didn’t acknowledge Steve in any way, but Steve had noticed the nearly imperceptible tensing as he’d approached. He waited silently for quite awhile, before offering to take over flight duties while the Asset could rest. He was answered with only a terse headshake. All further attempts at conversation went similarly unanswered, or with minor reactions. He stayed though, and attempted occasionally.

Steve Rogers had always been stubborn, that had been true before and after the serum, but the serum had certainly helped his staying power. He could wait.

* * *

 

Several days later, and Steve was finding plenty of time and opportunity to work on ignoring his nerves about flying.

There had been little and less to find at any sites where the energy signal was no longer transmitting, despite their endless travelling, and even in the few times they reached a new location while the signal was still active, they struggled to get specific enough readings and directions, and too much time was lost in attempted grid searches and traditional investigations.

Sam slumped wearily into the seat next to Steve in their shared rented room somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, and handed him a cup of coffee.

Steve swiped his hand roughly over his face and looked over. “Anything going on outside?”

“Nah. Barton’s on lookout, but I’m sure the Asset is out there, too. It’s not like he ever really goes off-duty.”

Steve nodded agreement. “He’s dedicated.”

“He’s a robot. He’s a cyborg. He’s got a metal arm and I never see where those guns and knives of his appear from, so I’m willing to assume he’s storing them inside his torso, in all the empty spaces he used to keep his internal organs and personality.”

Steve shook his head and laughed. “Better than all the personality Barton keeps showing. He seems to be enjoying his status as persona non grata with SHIELD. And Rumlow…”

Sam shrugged. “And Rumlow’s working on earning that designation too, for interpersonal reasons! I hear ya. I hope we get some action soon, though, both to see what you and the rest of these jokers can do, and to finally make some progress. I know we’ve been saying this, but they have to know something more than they’re telling us, right?”

Steve rested his head on his fist and shrugged wearily. “I don’t know. They must. We can only hope they had some mutually beneficial reason to partner with us in the first place, and that as long as they still need us, they’ll keep us in the loop as much as needed so we’ll still be able to help.” He paused. “Unless their whole plan is just an elaborate trap of some kind.”

Sam slumped lower. “You know, you’re such a ray of sunshine, it’s hard to believe you grew up in the Depression.”

* * *

 

Their first night in a rented home, Rumlow and Barton had gone to bed early, in 1 of the 3 bedrooms, and Steve had left Sam to sleep in the second bedroom.

The Asset had taken first watch, and Steve had sunk into the living room’s side chair with a file of important timelines from the decades he’d missed.

Natalia had slunk in quietly a few minutes later and perched on the arm of his chair. She had leaned into him, ostensibly to look at the file in his hands, and kept up a quietly murmured conversation with him about the events he’d slept through, in the ice.

Steve had wondered if she was making a play for him now, or if it was equally sexist and wrong of him to assume, as Sam had earlier joked, that her sudden proximity, in a dark and empty room, was a honeytrap and nothing casual or innocent.

He’d allowed her to lean into him, and had answered her questions straightforwardly, studiously avoiding any hints of innuendo or subtext.

Steve honestly wasn’t great at interpersonal subtext, really, and he preferred to be professional and serious whenever needed, so it was easy enough to intentionally carry on a forthright conversation with a beautiful woman half-draped across his lap.

And if it was an intense relief when she finally sauntered away, with a last lingering look over her shoulder as she deliberately chose the last empty room, well, maybe she wouldn’t notice Steve’s deep internal sigh and forcible release of his strangled hold on the file.

* * *

 

 

Later, Steve looked through the most recent data. The portal had disappeared but either hadn’t reappeared yet, or hadn’t been discovered by SHIELD or KGB sensors yet.

The door from Steve’s room to the hallway was cracked open, and Steve kept a secondary focus on the sounds throughout the safehouse.

Sam had said SHIELD was willing to share the location of their few safe houses that were already known to the Russians.

Steve’s hearing, and all his other senses too, were enhanced from the serum. Steve didn’t particularly like to eavesdrop, but he needed to stay on his guard with the others, and Sam was right to mistrust them. The Asset was usually on patrol or in his room, though Sam had pointed out the Asset spent any time in the group positioned between Natalia and Steve.

Sam considered it some sort of passive threat; Steve chose to consider it more of a peacekeeping move, though he wasn’t sure whether Natalia or Steve was supposed to be considered the threat there. Steve had a healthy appreciation for his own enhanced skills, of course, but Natalia had the same lithe coiled grace as the Asset. None of them had seen any external fight yet, but while all four of the Russian team were considered skilled and dangerous, neither Rumlow nor Barton had quite the same vibe of concealed danger like Natalia and the Asset did. Steve could recognize their skill and threat enough to hope he wouldn’t need to fight them together.

Down the hallway, past the room the Russian team shared, Steve could hear Sam moving around in the kitchen, and was surprised to hear Natalia asking for a cup of tea as well. Steve hadn’t heard her leave the other bedroom. He paused in his work and concentrated on listening to their conversation, and was startled at the abbreviated knock on his bedroom door.

“Heya, Steve, any progress?”

Steve looked up warily at Barton. It could be a coincidence, of course; Barton was far more personable and friendly than his three deadly teammates, but the timing seemed possibly suspect, as if he was distracting Steve while Natalia talked to Sam alone. Steve tried to keep up a casual conversation about the data and their current safehouse while attempting to focus on Sam and Natalia, but either because of the distractions or their low tones, he missed most of the conversation from the kitchen. Sam appeared in the hallway a short time later.

“Barton, I’m tracking down an almost definitely useless lead, and then bringing food back. Do you want to come with me? I know Steve’s still busy.”

Steve tried to hide the confusion on his face, as he wondered what Sam might be up to, and watched them both leave. Following a hunch, he went into the kitchen after they left, to get a drink, and found Natalia there. So perhaps Sam was leaving Steve and Natalia alone together deliberately, but for what purpose?

Natalia gave a shy smile and looked away. “Hello. Taking a break from number-crunching?”

Steve smiled back and sat down across from her. “It’s slow going, on our side. Anything we should know about from your side?”

She shrugged loosely, and blinked up at him through long lashes. “No, I don’t think so. I can’t make heads or tails of it, you know, I’m here mostly as support staff to my teammates. They’re the trained agents and fighters.”

Steve hid a smile behind his glass. So that’s how it is, huh? She must still be working on this angle with him, after all.

“We can skip all of this,” Steve said, putting his glass down and stretching his hand toward her on the table.

She looked up, her pretty face in a perfect pout of confusion, and tentatively slid her hand into his. “What do you mean, Steve?” She looked vulnerable but completely willing to trust him. God, she’s good.

He held her hand firmly for a moment and leaned closer to her. “It’s not gonna happen. You’re lovely, and I can appreciate what you’re trying here, but I’m quite aware that you are the equal or superior of your teammates, and I’m honestly offended you’d think minimizing your skill would make it easier to interest me.” He stood up with finality. “Ma’am.”

He walked outside as abruptly as possible. It never got easier, dealing with the faux seductions. He’d spent his life being utterly ignored by women, in favor of Bucky, and he understood that. No one wanted scrawny Steve with the chip on his bony shoulders, and he couldn’t fault them for appreciating Bucky, who was so vibrant and alive it would set Steve’s teeth on edge if he hadn’t already appreciated him so much.

After the serum, women threw themselves at him, both in the USO and outside of it. He was suddenly healthy and tall and everything he might have dreamed of being, and immediately everyone wanted a piece of him. It felt fake and shallow, and painfully inadequate, and while Steve was too inexperienced at first to completely duck most seduction attempts, he became very skilled at accepting heated frantic kisses and then gradually extracting himself from the situation. Part of him, then, had hoped that one of those times might feel passionate or real enough to let him close his eyes and ignore how impersonal it all felt, and to finally have some experiences of his own.

He had been so tired of always watching from the sidelines as everyone else lived their lives, while Steve felt perpetually stuck, in stasis, waiting for his chance. He wondered, sometimes, if his jealousy over Bucky’s seemingly endless romantic experiences was the same jealousy he always felt for others and tried to swallow down, those healthy people living their lives and choices, the way he felt excluded from an active normal life.

Every time, though, after the initial rush, it left him cold, and it was a relief to push them off him.

Until he saw Peggy again in Europe, of course. With Peggy it was real and personal, and, in some way he would struggle to articulate, their times together were not just heated but also warm, and present.

He missed that, of course, and it was hell to mourn someone still alive, as he was doing, but that loneliness wasn’t assuaged by mere physical comfort before, and it wouldn’t help now. He slumped his head onto his forearms, leaning on the balcony ledge, and wondered if his life would ever _not_ be a battle.

* * *

 

After Sam pointed out how often the Asset would seem to linger near Steve, or keep an eye on him, Steve began to notice the same.

It was mostly subtle, and generally unobtrusive, but it was apparently ongoing. It put Sam on edge, while leaving Steve more curious than concerned. The Asset was the most silent and distant man he had ever met. He existed in perfect readiness and perpetual competence; he was a weapon, primed and prepped at every moment, without personal details interfering.

Steve was therefore all the more struck by the faintest flickers of reactions he could occasionally imagine he detected in his cool grey eyes, like grey fog that obscured all details but for the faintest traces, the outlines of opinions and thoughts detected and then immediately lost to obscurity again.

Sam argued that the hints of personality were the aberration, the error in his robotic code, but Steve felt instead this was a case of _still waters run deep_. His only concern there, was that these particular waters seemed deep enough to drown, and dark enough to conceal any manner of deep-sea danger.

Sam would look and Steve quirk an eyebrow in the Asset’s direction whenever he was noticeably nearby. It was—often. Steve didn’t feel threatened, still, though he struggled to articulate his lack of concern to Sam.

During one late night, when Rumlow was on lookout, and Natalia and the Asset were in the other bedroom and common room, Steve finally initiated another discussion of the team with Sam.

“I’m almost beginning to think the Russians haven’t been entirely aboveboard with us.”

Sam smirked at the joke. “What gave it away? Rumlow giving himself the best shifts for sentry duty, or Barton always snagging any unattended food?”

Steve gave a wry nod. “I think Natalia is more capable than they let on, I think Rumlow is more of a loose cannon than is safe, and I think Barton needs to learn to read a room.”

Sam waved off the last bit, and pointedly asked, “And the Asset, Steve?"

“I still don’t know what to think about him.”

Sam scrunched his face, “Man, the only thing weirder than his fixation on you is your blind spot for him. Watch it, Steve.”

Steve ignored him, again, and straightened up with a faraway look. “Fury gave us a list of possible motivations, for why we’re all here. So far, nothing much has happened, and we’ve only found empty land, or apparently long evacuated locations. So what do the other team members know that they’re not telling, or what’s in it for them that we’re not seeing. Why are we all here, Sam?”

“It does seem like overkill to send y’all on this, with how little results we’ve managed so far.”

Steve looked back at Sam’s face. “Barton and Rumlow are capable agents. Aside from the needless antagonism of sending a former SHIELD agent, I can understand their placement on the team.”

Sam picked up the thought. “But you and the Asset are overkill. You’re both in a separate league, seems like.”

Steve’s face was furrowed seriously. “Don’t count Natalia out. She’s…she reminds me of someone I used to serve with. It’s easy to overlook her, but I think it’s a mistake.”

Sam cleared his throat. “After your, well, apparent death, everyone kept trying to recreate the super soldier experiment, and catch lightning in a bottle again. There’s been no official successes, but there’s always been lots of whispers that some attempts were complete failures even if they weren’t complete successes. It’s possible the Asset has some bastardized version of the serum, like everyone hints about.”

Steve shook his head. “That makes sense for his reaction times, but it makes it even stranger to have him on the team, and for them to have set this up to get me on the team, too. What’s the logic there?”

“Maybe it’s a battle royale, they’re betting on which super soldier version will win when they eventually turn on us. Or, maybe a bit more likely, everyone seems to think—well, what is they call you all?— _enhanced_ individuals like you might be somehow immune or less at risk to the type of energy they’re tracking.”

Steve closed the files and stretched. “Here’s hoping we find out before it comes down to any of that.”

* * *

 

Clint sifted disinterestedly through the pile of ash at the latest site. The building had been ablaze when they’d landed, and despite their best efforts, they weren’t able to put out the fire or rescue much of anything from the interior. They saw no one nearby, and found no bodies inside the building, before or after the fire had leveled it.

Natalia was poring over the scrap of half-burned map they had managed to pull out, and the Asset was out of sight but surely keeping a watchful eye nearby. Sam had helped Steve wrestle a few charred boxes outside, but all the files so far had either seemed unimportant or were too damaged to tell.

Clint sighed in frustration again. “I hate an unexpected bonfire. If you can’t plan for s’mores, it’s just a waste!”

Steve shot Sam a confused look, while he laughed and muttered, “Oh, it’s just a campfire dessert. I would have thought it was old enough to be from your time, but, maybe you didn’t spend much time camping?”

Steve shrugged ruefully, “Not outside of warzones, no.”

Natalia glanced over. “It might not have been unplanned, Barton. Do you see any evidence of arson?”

He hadn’t yet answered when the Asset appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and pulled a lighter from the ashes with unerring accuracy. Sam had flinched at his sudden appearance, but as though Steve had expected him, he stepped forward without a pause to examine it.

Rumlow walked up sharply and looked over at the Steve and the Asset. Perhaps annoyed that the Asset had brought his findings to Steve first, he said in a harsh voice, “Soldat, report. Did you finish following the tracks?”

Before the Asset had fully extended his arm to offer it, Steve had reached out and accepted it, lifting it up to examine closer while the Asset stalked over to Rumlow Natalia and almost wordlessly indicated a path on the map.

Natalia tucked the map fragment into her paperwork pile and said to Steve. “He thinks we’re too late to track whoever left this burning rubble here, but we can follow the tire tracks on our way into town for the night and see if we get lucky. Unless you think we ought to head back to HQ first?”

Steve flicked the lighter into Clint’s hands without warning, justifiably trusting him to catch it. “I don’t think we need to cycle back to HQ yet. There’s not enough to report. But we may as well request a clean-up team here, just in case they find anything we missed.”

Clint looked up from the lighter and scoffed. “Please, we’re the first string!”

With a final glance around, they headed back into the plane, Clint and Sam first, followed by Steve and the Asset off his shoulder, with Rumlow and Natalia pausing to visually sweep the area again.

* * *

 

Finally they caught a break, outside snowy forests in the foothills of a mountain range. The dots scattered around the map didn't form any particular pattern to Steve's eyes, but Natalia hadn't quite finished sketching out the locations when the Asset leaned in and briskly pointed out an unmarked section of the map and she tersely nodded and drew in the final location in the exact same spot.

“Spooky,” Sam whispered behind Steve, and he half-turned to shoot him a wry glance.

It was a little sinister, the silent perfectionism that the Asset always seemed to manage. But unsettling or not, they could only benefit from the unexplainable abilities both Natalia and the Asset so frequently display, so both Steve and Sam looked back to listen to Natalia's debrief. She summarized the new data, which roughly suggested the pattern they've detected, and pointed to the spot on the map.

“Our techs, on both sides, have found a way to get more sensitive readings, and to sift through to find the real data versus the errors. We're now able to potentially predict upcoming spots before the readings are high enough to fully register.”

Sam interjected, “You're telling me you're predicting where it's going to be? It's, what, sending it's luggage ahead of it, or how are we doing that?”

Natalia grimaced a bit as she tried to explain.

“No, it's not that it isn't there yet, we don't think.”

Clint leaned over to add, “Not that we really know!”

She waved him off and continued.

“It is hypothetically possible that it could generate a signal before it's fully appeared there, but we think actually that we normally only manage to register the spikes when the object is already on the way out of a given location. The working theory is that, with the more sensitive readings, we're seeing its current location earlier than before, which gives us the opportunity to arrive before it spikes in energy as it's leaving. We'll be able to test this, if we get to the spot early enough.”

Steve frowned at the map. “Do we know what’s at this spot? Empty forest, rural farms, buildings, what?”

Natalia gave a casual one-shouldered shrug. Rumlow seems even less engaged in the discussion than usual, though Steve couldn’t tell if it was disinterest or disagreement.

“It's supposed to be rural, but we don't know what might have made this a location. Guess we'll have to go and see, soldier."

* * *

 

The sensors might be getting more sensitive, but the range was still significant, and there was still a huge chunk of area to search. Ultimately, they had decided, on the flight there, not to risk a fly-over despite the surveillance benefit. Clint had pointed out that they didn't really know what they were looking for anyway, so they'd likely need to stay very low to see anything of use, and at that point, the risk from being an easy target wasn't worth the potential benefit. Sam always thought an overview was beneficial, but Steve had seen the Asset tensing up almost imperceptibly during the discussion and had finally lightly rested his hand on Sam's shoulder and suggested they try it this way first, and revisit the flyover plan next time, if there was a next time.

Sam had pulled him aside and pinned him with an intense look, torn between curiosity and frustration.

Steve shrugged at the unspoken question. “The Asset seems pretty dead-set on not risking the noise or the hazard of flying over, and I reckon we ought to take his opinion seriously. He rarely contributes, and by all accounts he is very good at his job.”

Sam sputtered out, “I don't disagree with that assessment, but, Steve, he didn't say anything!”

Steve had given a dry laugh after a moment of thought. “I guess you're right. But he was saying plenty with his body language, and he normally doesn't seem that invested in our discussions, except where Natalia deliberately asks for his evaluation.”

Sam shook his head in bewilderment. "Alright, so now you speak killer-robot subtext, that's great. Can only help, right? Hell, you're all spooky." After a pause he continued, “Actually, speaking of subtext, have you noticed how formal they are with the Asset, but not with each other? That's odd too, since I don't actually buy that he's in charge. Natalia's in charge, hell, she's practically in charge on our side, too, I don't think you've said no to her one time!”

Steve flushed and snapped back, “I've said no to her.”

Sam continued suiting up, but he looked over with an eagerly curious face. “Not in front of me, you haven't! Are you lyin’ to me, Steve, or did this conversation happen —In private…?”

Steve finished grabbing his gear and awkwardly avoided the question. “Are you ready yet? Let's get going,” striding out as confidently as he could.

* * *

 

When they split up to search the area, Sam had tried to partner with Natalia and been shut down with a single arched incredulous eyebrow before she sauntered away. Clint smirked and slung an arm over his shoulder, which Sam immediately shrugged off, but still followed along as Clint led them in the opposite direction.

Steve didn’t have to look to the side to know that the Asset was there. Sam had pointed out, and Steve had argued, at first from genuine confusion and then from general obstinance, that whenever the group fell into a natural grouping, the Asset was always at Steve’s shoulder, and preferably either next to Natalia or directly across the circle from her.

Steve couldn’t explain it, and he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t noticed, or worse yet, why he hadn’t been bothered, that the Asset was always at his back or in his blindspot. It should be alarming, honestly, if half of what they say about the Asset was true, or at the least it should be obnoxious. Steve didn’t and wouldn’t admit it, but until Sam had gotten in his head about it, he had found it somehow grounding or reassuring. Yeah, he definitely didn’t need to mention to Sam that he found the Winter Soldier at his back an indefinable comforting presence.

Steve turned to the Asset and inquisitively gestured in the two remaining cardinal directions, and then, following the Asset’s miniscule motion, resolutely turned and headed out. Aside from the others softly checking in on the comms occasionally, it was eerily silent as Steve led the way through the underbrush. The Asset almost never spoke, and even then only in responses, never initiating conversation, and his footsteps in his heavy combat boots were almost impossibly quiet. The lack of buildings or defining features made the search feel more challenging. It aggravated Steve to not have any clear concept of what they were looking for, or where it might be. Aside from the burned wreck and one other hastily stripped building, so far they had mostly been unable to conclusively find where the energy signatures came from in a given location.

Steve had intuitively already started turning back toward the Asset when he reached forward with his flesh arm to get Steve’s attention.

He silently pointed out some older tracks in the underbrush, and showed with a hand motion the curved path he wanted them to take now.

Steve nodded and trailed along, halting whenever the Winter Soldier held up a fist. Several tense silent minutes passed as they walked slowly and carefully, following the Asset’s instincts.

The next time they were about to walk again after a pause to listen, Steve tapped the Asset’s flesh shoulder to get his attention. The Asset jerked his head to the side aggressively to look at Steve.

Steve wondered, belatedly, if it had been a bad idea to touch him; Sam would certainly say yes, and make some reference to killer robots being trigger happy. The Asset’s face was blankly murderous, as always, with the black mask covering the lower half of his face, and while his body now looked even more high-strung, Steve noted that he’d let his weapons lower a few inches, rather than keeping them at the ready, while the rest of his body was poised for attack.

Steve moved slowly, to avoiding spooking him further, and tapped at his own ear and then gave a one-shouldered shrug to show confusion, hoping to point out to the asset that it had been radio silent for longer than expected, and longer than was typical, even for a quieter mission.

The Asset nodded solemnly and waved at Steve to wait, and leapt up to grasp the branches of the tree. He slithered up the tree in a silent blur, and even with Steve’s own enhancements, it had been impressive to watch, as brief a display as it was.

Steve kept a wary lookout from the base of the tree, but it remained silent, both in the surrounding forest, which seemed more oppressive by the minute as the comms stayed dead quiet as well, and from the tree above him too. If he hadn’t directly witnessed the Asset climb it in an inhuman flash, it would have been completely believable that the Asset had disappeared into thin air.

Steve tried to hide his flinch when the Asset dropped back down softly to the snowy ground beside him unexpectedly. Steve was struck again by the intensity of his solemn gray eyes, surrounded by the black combat paint. He didn’t always paint around his eyes, but he never took the mask off.

The teams mostly ate separately, and the Asset was more likely to volunteer for sentry duty than to ever loiter around, anyway, so Steve hadn’t wondered much, before, when he ever took the mask off. He wondered often, though, what his face looked like, when it was ever unpainted and unmasked, with the long hair pulled out of his face, and he was just a man, not an Asset or a Soldier. A man with a name, a name that Steve would likely never know; it wasn’t in any of the SHIELD or other US alphabet agency files, and the other team only ever used titles for him, if they called him by any name at all. They rarely needed to call to him at all, with how attentively the Asset watched everyone and everything, and they rarely talked about him to the others, either, so the lack of a proper name went unnoticed most days.

Steve realized with a start that he was still staring directly at the Winter Soldier, inches apart from where he had dropped out of the tree beside him. The realization was amplified by the fact that the Winter Soldier’s unshrinking gaze hadn’t wavered either, in the long moments they were staring at each other. It felt risky, in the way that standing near an edge at a great height feels momentous and dangerous, but it also felt bizarrely comfortable, or familiar, in some way Steve couldn’t articulate.

* * *

 

Steve mostly tried not to dwell on how his thoughts so frequently circled around the Winter Soldier.

It didn’t make any sense, for one thing, and it was risky to linger on around Sam. Sam couldn’t actually read minds, as intuitive as he sometimes could be, but people didn’t need to be psychic to guess the direction of Steve’s thoughts, most of the time.

He’d always worn his heart on his sleeve, even back when he’d fit into far smaller sleeves, and while his too-frequent scowl might distract strangers, but those who knew Steve quickly saw past that. He didn’t want to have to explain his preoccupation with the Winter Soldier, and he didn’t want to risk Sam seeing more than Steve himself could, through the complicated feelings the Asset seemed to bring up.

The Asset would stalk through his mind at all hours of the day, and his footsteps would stir up a host of long buried thoughts and memories, clouding up Steve’s mental focus and leaving him at least partially distracted. He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly about the Winter Soldier reminded him of, but surely he’d stumble upon it eventually; every day was a new memory tied to the Asset.

Some days he was reminded of the Howling Commandos, of his lifelong friend Bucky shipping off to war, or of his own many attempted enlistings, and at least that connection made sense; here they were, both Steve and the Asset were soldiers in yet another commando war.

But other memories, of his mother, of Coney Island, of Bucky’s sister Becca, of summer afternoons reading out on the fire escape, and of the nearly endless sketches he made of Bucky and their life together…those memories didn’t have any obvious connections to the Winter Soldier or their current tasks. Sometimes the connections were more deliberately made, like when Steve’s eye lingered on the metal arm and it reminded him of his own painful modification into a scientifically designed weapon, or the times when he thought he saw the same fatigue-edged determination in his eyes that Steve knew from his own mirror.

Steve finally ended the long moment, and stepped back half a pace. The Winter Soldier’s expression above the mask didn’t change. Did he maintain eye contact like that with anyone, did he have any opinions about how close they had been standing all that time? Sam would say (had said, in fact) that the Winter Soldier never revealed much visible expression because he had nothing to show, no internal dialogue to expose, just binary code of tactical instincts and war capabilities. Steve couldn’t believe that. Despite the arm, he was still a man and not a machine, and if he were truly blank he shouldn’t hold Steve’s attention any more than the cursory look he’d give himself in the mirror when one was available.

No, there was something else there, Steve knew it.

If he were honest with himself, wherever the kernel of personality hid, he wanted to find it, deep in the Asset’s war-scoured mind.

They continued their search in the direction the Winter Soldier chose. He didn’t share whatever he had seen from the treetop, but he led the way surely and deliberately, with Steve steadily behind. Steve followed suit when the Asset suddenly hunched over and crept even more slowly and quietly through the trees, until they stopped, and the Winter Soldier pointed at a partially concealed hatch in the ground just in front of them.

Steve got his attention and motioned to the comms again with a quizzical face, _Should they call this in?_ Steve would have relayed the information to the others immediately, as a matter of procedure, if it weren’t for the ongoing, unplanned comm silence, and the way the entire forest around them seemed to hold its breath.

The Winter Soldier agreed brusquely, but when Steve tried the radio, there was only silence, and the Asset tapped at his ear with a headshake, so the radios were evidently out of commission, though whether that was intentional blocking or something incidental because of the energy source, Steve couldn’t be sure.

They hadn’t noticed this issue previously in their searches, so Steve mentally prepared for this to be a more productive mission, whether that would translate to violence or not.

When Steve gestured to suggest finding the rest of team, the Winter Soldier nodded sharply and pointed two fingers to the left, and one finger to the right, so apparently he had seen where the others were from the treetop as well.

That answered one question, but not actually the question Steve had asked. The Asset seemed to be waiting on Steve, and Steve realized he had indicated where the others were to give Steve the chance to choose which they should approach first.

He only had to consider the question for a moment, since Natalia was hardly one to need to be rescued, even if the absence of comms had caused her any trouble, which he rather doubted.

He pointed two fingers to the left, like the Asset had done, but lifted an eyebrow to see if the Winter Soldier agreed.

He nodded back placidly, and immediately took off in that direction, flapping an impatient hand at Steve to tell him to wait.

Surprisingly little time had passed when he returned with Sam, Clint and Rumlow, all looking none the worse for wear, and studiously silent, though Steve was unsure whether that was by similar instinct or because the Winter Soldier had warned them.

Sam walked to his side immediately as they all followed the Winter Soldier to the hatch. Sam quirked an eyebrow at Clint and motioned in the direction Natalia had gone: _Should we look or wait for her?_

Clint shook his head and waved off his concern, much as Steve had mentally done when choosing behind who the Winter Soldier should go look for before they entered the hidden underground space.

It was unlikely to be anything other than a hidden base of some kind, and given their purpose, searching the area, it was all too likely to be hostile or dangerous in some way.

Everyone armed themselves as Clint motioned that he would stay above for now, and stealthily climbed a tree. Though, Steve couldn’t help but notice, not as smoothly as the Winter Soldier had done.

Steve found his eyes lingering on the Winter Soldier again now, as the man knelt and looked up at Steve, only Steve, to see if he was ready.

Steve nodded, but peripherally noticed Sam huff a quiet scoff at being so completely ignored. Steve darted a look over at Sam, nodded to show he was ready, and then silently opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder inside as silently as possible.

 

* * *

 

They crept quietly down the long concrete hall, with the Winter Soldier taking point by default, and Sam, Steve steadily flanking him, and Rumlow bringing up the tail.

It was a narrow, claustrophobic space, dimly lit and oppressive.

The doors they passed were shut and locked, and no light showed under the frame. In the interest of silence, and since they still weren’t sure what exactly they were looking for or whether anyone they encounter will be an enemy or not, they decided to pass by the rooms without clearing them, and at Steve’s hand gesture, Sam angled his body and walked sideways to help Rumlow watch their backs as they continued down the hallway.

They finally came to their first major intersection, and the silence down the left and straight passages made the slight humming from the right more noticeable, and the choice all the easier.

Rumlow signaled that he’d stay to watch the intersection. There were far fewer doors down this next hallway, and still everything was locked tight and the rooms seemed to be unlit.

As they approached the door at the end of the hallway, the noise level gradually increased, and a bluish glow was visible from the edges of the door as well. They all exchanged glances, Steve and Sam apprehensive, and the Winter Soldier seemingly unaffected.

Steve noticed the rhythm to how his metal hand adjusted and tightened its grip on his gun a few times in quick succession, revealing his otherwise unseen tension, but the sight triggered a memory he couldn’t manage to place before shaking it off and taking his place to the side of the door, as the Asset tested the handle and found it unlocked, and indicated he was going to enter first. The other three took up their supporting positions, and flung the door open.

The pulsing blue glow seemed to surge through the open door, and Sam and Steve both reared back from the shock and pain of the bright light, but the Winter Soldier completed his motion into the cavernous room, rifle swept from side to side at the ready.

The room was full of men and women in either lab coats or some sort of yellow beekeepers outfit, radiation suit, Steve recalled, they’d called those, everyone collapsed and scattered around the floor, mostly to the fringes of the room as though blown back from the center, where the pulsing blue light came from.

At first Steve only noticed the large blue oval of overwhelming light hovering in the air, the outline a vivid and sharp shape with the inside a shimmery haze.

Next he realized, with alarm, that the shimmery image didn’t match the surroundings, but appeared to have been cut out and levitated here, from somewhere else.

A portal, they’d called it, in their doomsday predictions of what the tesseract could hypothetically be creating, if it was the source of the energy readings.

He shook his head and scrubbed his face to focus on the practical elements of the current situation, if there were any, and noticed with horror the blue tesseract cube on the ground beneath the floating oval.

It looked as though the cube were somehow generating the fluctuating portal.

In a panic, suddenly crushed under memories of the fight on the plane and the unnerving way the tesseract had dissolved the Red Skull into space the last time he’d seen it, minutes before dooming himself to a coffin of ice, Steve looked frantically over at his companions.

The Winter Soldier was transfixed, but oddly still and almost relaxed. His gun was lowered and his hands loose. Steve didn’t spare more than a confused thought at the sight before he looked hurriedly over at Sam, who had visibly shrunk back and struggled to stay standing. Steve snapped to a decision, since the Asset wasn’t in any apparent distress yet, and dragged Sam back out of the room, with a shout at the Winter Soldier to fall back.

In the hallway outside the room, Sam slumped against the wall, weakly clutching Steve’s arm where he still held him up. Sam didn’t look as though he understood what Steve was saying to him; Steve could barely hear himself, and he had the impression, crazed as it seemed, that the light itself was drowning him out, since the humming hadn’t grown much in volume from outside to inside the room.

The sound was deeper, in some way, seeming to vibrate through their bones, while the light itself nearly scrambled their thoughts and drove the breath from their lungs.

He pulled Sam further on down the hallway.

If Steve hadn’t been facing down the hallway already to see Natalia come flying around the corner at the end of the hall and sprint towards them, he wouldn’t have heard or noticed her, compared to the overwhelming sensory overloads from the tesseract.

She barely hesitated in her steps alongside Sam and Steve, and Steve waved her on, trying to communicate that the Asset was still inside the room.

Steve dragged Sam back to the intersection and set him down, then looked back to the tesseract room. The radiance seemed to be noticeably increasing, and Steve tried to set Sam up, leaned against the wall, but felt the duty to leave him behind and complete the mission.

Neither Natalia nor the Asset had come back through the doorway, and whatever the tesseract was doing was unquestionably dangerous, and seemed to be building steadily towards some unknown goal.

Steve cursed the lack of intel, again, because it was impossible to know if this had happened with every energy spike, or if the location in this bunker suggested this might be an isolated or culminating event.

Reluctantly he left Sam wilted against the wall, expression agitated but body feeble. He had to rescue the rest of the team, if he could, and attempt to stop whatever the tesseract was doing, if at all possible.

He pounded down the hallway and strategized as he ran.

The Winter Soldier hadn’t seemed as affected as Sam was, but he didn’t seem coherent, compared to Steve, so even if he was still standing, he would need to be guided out, and he wasn’t likely to be much help in disabling the tesseract.

He couldn’t hazard a guess as to how Natalia might have fared, entering the room, but she had seen Sam collapsed against the wall and hadn’t reacted poorly. He was almost back to the room when he realized, suspiciously, how little she had reacted to Sam’s condition.

Either she didn’t care about the SHIELD team at all, which wasn’t exactly unexpected, or she had known what was coming, which was what Sam and Steve had feared all along: that the Russians knew more than they were admitting about the energy signals and their cause.

His mouth was set in a grim line as he likewise remembered how both Barton and Rumlow had offered to stay back, when Rumlow, at least, usually never willingly stayed behind, even if Barton would often enough hang back as lookout.

Steve skidded through the doorway, finally, shield up and braced, and looked wildly around the room.

The Winter Soldier was still standing where he’d left him, blankly staring at the hovering void, while Natalia was also still upright, and tapping madly away at a computer console to the side of the central area with the tesseract.

The luminance had only increased in his time out of the room, and while the room felt noticeably colder, the way the light seemed to pierce through the skin felt almost hot, though more unsettling than painful.

Whatever Natalia was doing seemed to be working, as the humming and light peaked and then started to slowly degrade. The hovering oval became less solid, in some way more transparent or impermanent. Steve would have struggled to articulate the way the oval somehow transitioned from a 3D tear in the air to something like a flat representation of a hole in the room; the change from an actual void to simply the image of one was like looking back and forth quickly from a photograph to the real thing.

Abruptly the image collapsed, and Natalia finished clicking at the keyboard to the side as the glow of the tesseract also faded and blinked out. She motioned the Winter Soldier to the center of the room, and he reacted immediately, like one emerging from a catatonic state or, loathe as Steve was to admit it, like a robot activated and set into motion again after a period of inactivity.

The Asset moved without hesitation and grasped the tesseract in his metal hand. Steve had lunged for him, remembering the terrifying way the Red Skull had been ripped apart by holding it, but the Asset had reached the cube before he could stop him, and Steve was shocked to find the Asset had immediately wheeled around and leveled the rifle in his flesh hand at Steve, placidly grasping the cube in his metal hand, and staring with unsettling indifference at Steve.

Steve kept his shield up but held his free hand up and open to present less of a threat.

Natalia swept her arm down from across the room at the Asset, and he lowered his rifle just enough to appear less threatening, but still far from relaxed.

Steve kept his attention divided between the two, puzzled as he was by the development, but his picture of the situation was clarifying in his mind as he watched her glide over toward them both, standing several feet apart, stopping alongside the Winter Soldier and never lowering her gaze from Steve’s face or dropping her guard as she approached.

The Winter Soldier and Natalia were as unaffected, or as lightly affected, rather, as Steve had been by the pulsating energy of the activated tesseract, but everyone else was laid out from it, and even if an initial explosion had actually killed all these scientists littered around the room, Sam was similarly dangerously affected from close proximity to the activated tesseract. Sam and Fury had posited that the Russians only wanted Steve for something to do with his super soldier serum; perhaps they had thought he could resist the tesseract output. So Steve and Sam’s suspicions that the Winter Soldier had some version of the serum, too, seemed justified, but apparently, Natalia too was part of some experimentation, considering that both the two present Russian teammates been likewise undamaged by the force of the energy. Smart, for them to have keep her a secret. And apparently, accurate for the Russians to have predicted that the triggered tesseract wouldn’t incapacitate them.

“Time’s up, Rogers. Thanks for your help, but we can take it from here.” Natalia feigned a casual attitude, but she was still poised to strike, waiting on his response. Her cautious distance from both Steve and the Winter Soldier told him, though, that she didn’t expect such an easy conclusion.

“I think you know I can’t let you leave like that. Not unless you leave the tesseract behind."

She smirked at Steve and stepped a bit closer to the Winter Soldier and flicked her hand up in a tiny motion, and in reply the Asset braced his metal hand tighter on the tesseract and then raised his rifle directly at Steve again. “Just following orders, Rogers. I’m sure you were also asked to find a way to make it home with any tech, and with as few teammates as possible, isn’t that right?”

Steve furrowed his brow, frustrated at the betrayal and how exactly it matched his low expectations of an international coalition, and pained at having to fight either Natalia or the Asset. He appreciated their skills and talent, and he genuinely liked what he’d found of their personalities, as much as you can like anyone who only lets you see a fragment of their true selves.

“My agency told me to expect to be betrayed, and they only warned me to be prepared for that eventuality. I wasn’t told to turn first.”

Natalia’s smile was brittle, “Well, I would’ve hated to let you down. But Steve, really: back down now, and don’t make us put you down. My bosses would far rather we kill you here and now, but they’ll forgive that failure so long as the tech comes home with me. And I’d rather not kill you, if you don’t mind.”

Steve rolled his neck and shrugged at her. She shrugged back, and with a hand raised, she said “Let’s stow this away then. Safety first, and all that,” and slowly and non-threateningly withdrew metal panels from a pouch at her lower back, which she snapped into a containment box, and encased the tesseract with efficient motions.

Steve stepped closer and the Asset stiffened, and Natalia said, “Steady, Steve.”

This looked like the proverbial end of the road, so he decided to try for answers. “So you both have the serum then? You knew you’d need it for this, here, and you knew just what you were looking for, so why include SHIELD at all, then?”

She gave Steve a wry smile,  still holding the packaged tesseract. “Yes, we knew what we were looking for, we’ve known SHIELD had it all this time. A former Hydra leader, Baron von Strucker, saw a chance to steal it and resurrect Hydra. We thought he might be able to activate it, in a way no one’s managed it before, and we had reason to suspect he might try to use it as a portal, like we just saw, and if he succeeded, he might be looking for an army or doomsday weapon, possibly extra-terrestrial. If he could connect to the origin source of the cube, maybe he could get even more and greater weapons or allies.”

She paused a moment and moved slightly closer. “Steve, look, you just helped us save the world from a madman. Take this as a win, okay? Stay here and let us leave with it, and you and Sam will both walk away from this. You know you can’t take both of us, and even if you could, Rumlow and Barton are still out there. SHIELD had the cube all this time, and now Mother Russia will have our turn, yes?”

At Steve’s grim headshake, she darted a glance over at the Asset and pointed at Steve. “Soldat, neutralize the threat.”

Despite knowing what was coming, and how quickly the Asset could move, he was still taken aback by the speed and ferocity of the attack, from total standstill to full out battle.

Steve whipped his shield up and blocked the nearly point-blank gunshots, and smashed forward as quickly as possible to slam the rifle out of the Winter Soldier’s arms.

Steve fell back under the onslaught, with the metal arm swinging wide in a punishing haymaker that crashed against the shield and nearly distracted Steve from the knife in his right hand that swung up and just missed Steve’s ribs as he jerked away.

Steve was struggling to keep up with the endless punches and parries of the knife, while also trying to maintain awareness of Natalia and the boxed-up tesseract.

She was still in the room, having retreated back to one of the keypads and typing something in with intense concentration.

The Winter Soldier seemed to pull knives out of thin air, and easily swapped them from hand to hand to disorient Steve, who so far was successfully blocking most of the hits and only allowing glancing injuries. But while Steve could maintain this mostly defensive strategy all day, he couldn’t see a strategy in which he could successfully subdue both Natalia and the Winter Soldier without taking some severe hits in the process, and worse still, he couldn’t forget about Sam, who was still out in the hallway and shouldn’t be counted on to recover enough to support himself, let alone help in the fight.

Despite Natalia’s pacifying words, Steve didn’t want to leave him defenseless. Rumlow was still inside, and might even have turned on Sam already, if this had been orchestrated from the beginning, and Barton was still outside, guarding the exit.

It didn’t seem possible to carry Sam out along with the tesseract and somehow avoid or escape both of the other Russian team members. Natalia finished typing and said, “Sorry, Steve, but we really need to go now. I’ve set this building to self-destruct.”

There was something about all of this that had hit Steve the wrong way. He gave up everything to save the world, he threw his own life away; gladly, in one sense, because while he’d adored Peggy, and God, he really had, it had been easy to let go and imagine himself joining Bucky, Bucky who had slipped through his fingers one final time, after the millions of times he’d slipped out of Steve’s hands before that, any time he might have reached for him when they were younger, or when he was drafted and Steve couldn’t follow.

But here he was now, facing yet another doomsday scenario, and Natalia wasn’t evil or insane with a red skull, she was only dangerous and unpredictable with red hair, but everything, somehow, decades later, still centers around this cube of supernatural, extra-human technology, and Steve was tired, so tired, of all of this.

He didn’t want to include Sam in his sacrificial play, but Sam made the choice to be here too, maybe even more than Steve did, in some ways, and Steve can’t help but see the practicality in letting it all end here, truly, once and for all. Let the building self-destruct. Maybe an explosion can finally pull this cursed piece off the game board.

With renewed determination, he slammed the shield into the Winter Soldier’s face and shook off the human hand he tried to snag it with while blindly slashing at Steve behind the shield with the knife in the metal hand.

Natalia seemed to recognize the decision and resignation in Steve’s eyes, and the tension in her body ratcheted up even higher. It was interesting, in a distant way, to realize that she wasn’t truly worried before this moment, and he couldn’t decide if that was more a commentary on her disbelief in his ability to end this before, or evidence of her own self-belief in being able to handle whatever he might throw at her.

He did literally that, though, and whipped the shield at her as she finally took him seriously and reached for her handgun.

The shield should have hit her dead-on, but she was nearly as good as she thought she was, after all, so it only barely clipped her, and he stepped wide to catch the rebound. She’d continued her attempt at a duck, and rolled, then popped up and sprinted out of the room. Steve cursed under his breath before he blocked the Asset’s attack and kicked him in the face.

He swung the shield heavily several times, hoping to disorient him long enough to give Steve the opportunity to chase after Natalia, and as soon as he fell back, Steve scrambled for the door, desperation flooding his veins. He slammed the heavy metal door and swung the shield to damage the hinges, knowing it would only buy him a few moments.

Sprinting down the hall, he overheard the confrontation even over his own pounding footsteps. Sam sounded hoarse but resolute, while Natalia was placating and cajoling.

Steve rounded the corner, shield high, into the widened hallway off the intersection, and saw the two, as well as Rumlow, in a standoff. Sam still looked drained and pallid, but even from his half-slumped position against a doorway, he’d apparently smelled a rat when Natalia came back alone with a new box of tech in her hands.

He had his gun drawn and aimed at the box, while Natalia tried to talk him down, and Rumlow slowly maneuvered down the hallway for a clearer shot at Sam. Steve was fairly certain the Russians’ awareness of the dangerous instability of the cube was the only thing keeping them from risking shots and ricochets in the metal and concrete corridor.

Sam looked like he was barely on his feet, as all three whirled to face Steve. The distraction was enough to let Rumlow tackle Sam to the floor, and Steve lunged to fight Natalia and try to find an opportunity to assist Sam.

Both Steve and Natalia were fighting almost cautiously at first, all too aware of the hazardous object in her hands. With only a moment’s warning, the Winter Soldier finally caught up and slammed into Steve, who had only partially blocked with the shield before the attack. As they careened along the hallway and across the open doorway, Steve saw Sam motionless on the floor, and Rumlow picking up his fallen gun.

Steve angled his body to crash into the doorway, and braced himself to kick up and catch the Asset to wrestle him down into the room, knocking Rumlow down in the process. He wasn’t sure if Sam was dead, but he knew the tesseract had to be the first priority, so he scrambled out, and pulled the door shut, lifting the shield to try to warp the metal frame around the door, to hopefully slow them down a bit in their pursuit.

He glanced through the observation window into the room as he lifted the shield, and saw the Winter Soldier pulling away his face mask, shattered from the last collision. The Winter Soldier lifted his head, and…time stopped.

* * *

 

“Bucky?” Steve croaked out, feeling as though he was that asthmatic kid again, and there was no air, no air.

Oblivious to his panic, the Winter Soldier advanced to the undamaged door, and wrenched it open.

Steve couldn’t react in time, as the shield was torn from his boneless fingers, but as he was roughly dragged into the room he managed to say his name again, now that Bucky could hear him.

The Winter Soldier stared at him in consternation while a flicker of unrest crossed his blankly hostile face. Bucky— because, somehow, this is Bucky, risen from the dead, or more likely, a ghost back from the grave to haunt Steve with all his regrets— blinked slowly at Steve, and the dawning recognition in his eyes might be the most beautiful and excruciating thing Steve had ever seen. The fierce edges of his expression, the face of an assassin, shattered into a look Steve can hardly remember Bucky ever letting him see, a confused desperation.

Bucky stumbled into Steve’s arms, even as he tried to pull back, his face twisted with confusion. “I know you. Don’t I know you?” Steve held him steady, and resisted the urge to clutch him tighter, close enough that he can try to believe they’re safe.

“Yeah, Buck. I’m Steve. I’m your friend. You’re my— you’re my family, Bucky.”

Bucky’s eyes were impossibly bright as they welled up with unshed tears, and it shredded Steve’s heart to see him this way; broken and unsteady, when the Bucky in his memory was always so confident and relaxed, and even when Steve knew it was mostly bravado, that smile rarely faltered, not when Steve could see.

He’s struck by a painful flash of memory, the month when Steve nearly died of pneumonia one bitterly cold winter, when they were roommates and bedmates by necessity, after Steve’s mother was gone, and God, Steve would’ve traded his life’s cure to have Bucky in his bed for real, to feel like Bucky wanted him and to not fear that anything between them would be pity and not love. Bucky worked himself to the bone every day trying to keep a roof over their heads, and collapsed every night into a broken sleep in the same bed as Steve, to share his warmth, the way he shared every scrap of himself with Steve, every bit of his warmth both literal and metaphorical. It made it just that much more inevitable that Steve would pine for him, and guarantee, that much more, that Steve could never possibly ask Bucky for the last piece of himself he hadn’t shared, for the rest of his heart. The rare nights Bucky slept long enough for nightmares, they seemed to all center on Steve and his knife’s edge health, but Bucky would pull on the brittlest smile every morning that only settled in and looked the least bit believable on the days when Steve looked less visibly pained with each breath.

This Bucky was a hollowed-out shell, a castaway clinging to a shipwreck, an orphan abandoned on a street corner. This Bucky had more in common with the darkest pieces of pre-serum Steve than with his old self, and it was shrapnel in Steve’s soul to see him like this.

Bucky settled into his embrace just the slightest bit, and whispered out, “I know you, I think I know you.”

“Yes, Bucky, you do know me. I’m your Steve. You’re my best friend, you’re Bucky.”

Suddenly Steve realized, in a panic, that however much Bucky was distracted, Steve had completely tunnel-visioned, while his heart stopped and restarted in the face of his long-dead best friend, who he had apparently been living alongside for weeks. The realization came too late, as Rumlow tased and tackled Steve into a large dentist chair he hadn’t previously noticed, off to the side of the room. Restraints on the chair snapped into place immediately, the moment Steve was forced into the chair. Bucky blinked, disoriented, and looked pained but powerless when Steve struggled against the reinforced metal holding him down.

“Help me, Bucky, please!” The indecision and fear on Bucky’s face pained Steve as much as the knowledge that he had failed Bucky yet again, and his distraction might also mean the end of the world, depending on what happened now with the tesseract, his failed mission.

Rumlow snapped a string of Russian words at Bucky, and it was like a guillotine drops, the way Bucky’s face abruptly smoothed out into the icy blankness of the Winter Soldier again, and he uncoiled back into the lethal menace of the Asset.

The Winter Soldier clearly wasn’t Bucky anymore; at any rate, Bucky wasn’t currently in residence in the ocean dark swirls in his eyes, but the Winter Soldier was no longer quite the briskly murderous weapon he has been, either. He reacted as though his fighting instincts are crowded by static, or, as Steve desperately wants to believe, like a puppet tugged by warring hands.

The emotional upheaval was too much for Steve, even more pressing than the immediate threat of the Rumlow, or the massive risk of the tesseract, and he felt staticky and jittery himself.

Memories sluiced into one another, a collision of thoughts and impressions from both the deep and the recent past, fractured with this brave new world of miracles and impossibilities. Like everything he had ever strived for or mourned, etched on a glass timeline of his life and dropped from a height, shattered into irretrievable chaos, and as though every soft piece of him is shrapneled with the glass shards, splinters in his very soul.

In a way, it can’t matter to fight back now. The Winter Soldier is unblinking, staring at Steve as he struggled, his gun steadily aimed at Steve, as Rumlow typed into a console to the side of the chair, nearer the door.

In a way, it would be a justification of everything to let Bucky kill him, the way he let Bucky fall to his death, but then again, it’s a second cruelty to allow Bucky to be used this way for a violence he would never intend, and it’s like abandoning him to a second plummet into snowy mountainous ravines if Steve doesn’t even attempt to pull him out of this automated death. He started repeating Bucky’s name, and facts and stories from their long friendship, hoping to jog his memory again.

Rumlow sneered. “Won’t work, Steve. He’s been a long time between maintenance cycles this time, that’s the only reason he heard you at all. We usually like to erase him more frequently than that, but this mission took too long. I’m sure it’ll be the same for you, not that you’ll remember, once we’re done with you. That’s what this bad boy is for,” he said, as he smacked the chair, and then shoved the mouthguard into Steve’s mouth, clipped in place with a brutal muzzle, and settled the skull piece connections along his forehead.

Rumlow went back to the console, setting up the machine. “Soon enough you’ll be one more brainlessly-loyal super soldier like this one. Damnedest thing that you know each other. Must be in his file somewhere, but with you being dead all these years, it hasn’t been relevant information. Not like you really need to know the background info for a weapon anyway, and that’s all he is. All you’ll be. So. Any last words, before we melt your brain?”

Steve was perplexed to see Natalia drift silently into the room, tesseract no longer in her hands. Rumlow looked up as she stopped alongside the Winter Soldier.

“Barton has the tesseract?” he asked, and at her nod, he smirked. “And our side mission is almost wrapped up too: kill or erase the late great Captain America. I can’t wait to wipe that self-righteous look off his capitalist face. It’s gonna feel pretty great never having to listen to any more of his self-important comments.”

Natalia nodded again, and then smoothly drew her gun and shot Rumlow in the head.

“It does feel pretty great,” she said.

She immediately rattled off a different Russian code to the Winter Soldier, and the tension went out of his shoulders, and perhaps a hint of identity slipped back into his eyes. She turned crisply to Steve and started removing all the wires around him, and began releasing the restraints.

“Good faith effort, Steve? Barton and I have been hoping to defect to SHIELD, as soon as we thought we could manage to bring the Asset with us. He trained me, he was always kind to me. It isn’t something that happens, within the program, but we’ve kept an eye on each other, whenever we could. I didn’t want to leave him behind. Barton came over for me, to help me find a way to extract him, but it’s been complicated. But now, to find out that you know him…I think that might be enough to help successfully deprogram him, along with the rest of the codes we’ve collected. And—I was worried about what his reception would be like at SHIELD. I’ve spent my life on a leash, much like the Winter Soldier, and I won’t let SHIELD lock him away or study him, or force him into the same life on a different side, if that’s not what he wants."

Steve vehemently nodded as she continued. “But I believe you’ll be there for Bucky, I think you’ll do anything you can to save your friend, just like Clint did for me,” she said with a private smile.

Undoubtedly it would be complicated, but the way Bucky made eye contact at the sound of his name seemed like a good omen.

Natalia helped Steve up from the chair. “With all of our intel, and the tesseract too, that should be a decent down-payment on redemption for a traitor or three, don’t you think?”

* * *

 

**A Year Later**

Bucky lined up his shot carefully.

Sam was partially hidden behind a tree trunk, but he kept ducking his head out, and seemed likely to run for further cover soon enough. He timed his exhale as Sam stood to sprint forward, and pulled the trigger smoothly.

The red splattered across Sam’s chest and he lurched to the side and yelled.

“Damn it, Barnes, was that you again? You know paintball is supposed to be an individual sport! You can’t just snipe everyone else while Steve captures all the flags and wins every time!”

Bucky huffed a laugh and leaned slightly out of his tree to catch a glimpse of Steve, further down the field. Steve had been scanning the trees after Sam’s outburst and grinned when he saw Bucky.

He signaled to the left, and Bucky nodded and began shifting to move through the trees to the left too, to cover Steve. Barton, well, Clint, they called him now, had heard about the Survival Game and strongly suggested it as an essential training and team bonding exercise.

Bucky didn’t go on every Delta Strike Team mission with Sam, Nat, Clint, and Steve, but he always participated in team events like this, and anytime it was a high risk mission he went along to keep an eye on Steve.

Sam could say whatever he liked, but Bucky was only here for and because of Steve, so they were always a team, as far as he was concerned.

He had a soft spot for Nat too, partially from the way she understood his complicated life experience, and from the way he somehow still remembered fragments from training her as a teen, though most of that time was otherwise forgotten. It wasn’t enough to keep him from eliminating her from the game, if he got the shot, but he hardly ever did with how gracefully she slipped from cover to cover.

Steve would always insist, over the after-game meals, that she only avoided being hit because Bucky had trained her too well, all those years ago, and everyone would groan and joke about how it was hard to tell if Bucky was Steve’s bodyguard or vice versa, with how they always argued for each other against everyone else. And then usually Clint would segue the conversation into a comparison of bruises from the game.

Bucky had tried playing Clint’s way, once, with a bow and paint-tipped arrows, and it was a fun challenge, but he found it harder to move as silently as he liked with the other equipment.

As far as they could tell, he’d been successfully deprogrammed, and none of the codes Nat had stolen triggered him anymore. Everyone avoided saying anything about it, but he was fairly certain he wasn’t quite as ghostly elusive or skilled as he once had been, as a brainwashed machine, but the trade-off was remembering Steve from long and from yesterday, and that was a bargain he would make again a thousand times.

Bucky’s first priority in each game was to help Steve win, but his second priority in each game was to be the one to land a hit on at least Sam or Clint, if not both. Sam was hilariously outraged by any hit, but Clint appreciated the kind of absurd trick shots that Bucky excelled in, like shots while jumping between trees and risking Clint hitting him back so they were both out of the game.

It was worth it, so long as it was late enough in the game for Steve to still win, and Clint’s reactions were subject to many retellings afterwards. The team reminded Bucky of the Howling Commandos in the best ways.

He and Steve were very different people now; Steve had been bright as the sun during those early missions when the Commandos had just been formed, and still mostly untouched by the horrors of war, though Bucky already carried some deep scars from Hydra even back then.

Losing Bucky that first time had dimmed Steve, and he could still see that shuttered fear in his face sometimes, but their experiences, and their own ghosts, had levelled the playing field between them a bit, and while Bucky wouldn’t have chosen that for Steve, it made it somehow easier to look him full in the face now. Steve had always felt safer at a distance to Bucky, first as that justice-seeking punk he grew up with, and then as the embodiment of national pride, Captain America.

But this Steve had settled into his skin, and shed some of the weight of expectations he’d carried as a symbol, and Bucky couldn’t quite understand how that left them eye to eye now, but he wasn’t going to question it. He’d been following Steve around for years, only to find Steve following him during the war, and it was all he’d ever wanted, and never hoped to get, to be side by side together.

Steve had retrieved the last flag, and used the air horn to signal the end of the game, so Bucky dropped out of the trees and sauntered over, bumping shoulders with him.

Steve handed over the winning flag with a teasing air of solemnity, and then beamed and slung his arm over Bucky’s shoulders and tugged him toward the exit.

No, Bucky wasn’t sure how they’d ended up here, but somehow, he couldn’t regret the journey if this was the destination.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second fanfic I've ever written, so I really hope you liked it! I'm on tumblr as [RansomNoteworthy](https://ransomnoteworthy.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> I'd love to hear from you, here or there!


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